The Connection
Published by The Journal of Family Life online, July, 2009
Also found in the chapbook, Swimming with Fish and Other Animals
Published by The Journal of Family Life online, July, 2009
Also found in the chapbook, Swimming with Fish and Other Animals
The season is winding up, and as my deckhand, I look to you for help.
“Tomorrow’s the first big day,” I remark as we head out to the net rack. “We have to get this gear on today and go for groceries. I’d like to head out tonight.”
Your face falls, but I haven’t noticed.
“I’m not feeling so good,” you answer, and I see your scowl. I’m in my skipper mentality, what your mother calls my “jerk mode,” so I’m quick to assume the worst: I think you just don’t want to work. After all, I think, you’re 13, and though you like making money, you’d rather play video games than help out. It’s just my first wrong assumption of the day.
By the time I chew on that for a while, I’m pissed at you. We work with the gear in silence. I stew over what to do. I need the help, but I don’t need the distraction of a reluctant attitude. You committed to working for me for the season, and I want to teach you to live up to your commitments. Isn’t that what being a Dad is all about?
I’m even more pissed, and we haven’t spoken a word. You go through the motions, but the tension between us is thick. We’ll argue this out later, after the nets are on the boat. We drive to the cannery in a thick cloud of dust and silence.
Home, hours later, after dinner, I’m starting to pack up. “Got your gear together?” I ask, knowing you haven’t.
“I don’t feel good,” you answer from your bed. “My stomach hurts and I’ve got a headache.”
“Look,” I say, walking into your room, “I need your help tomorrow. I’m sorry you feel bad, but you promised me you’d come, and you need to get going. Take some Tylenol. You can sleep on the boat. We have to get out of the river before the tide is too low.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Dad!” Your voice rises as you start getting upset. “Can’t you just go without me?”
“No!” I answer, my voice getting louder, too. “I NEED you out there! I’m counting on you.” I walk out of your room and down the hall toward mine. “It’s gonna be a big day, and we really need the third hand to pitch the fish! Let’s go! We don’t have time to argue!”
“No, Dad!” you yell back at me, coming out into the hall. “I can’t go! I don’t feel good!” You run back into your room and slam the door.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I mutter under my breath. “I don’t have time for this!” Your Mom, hearing the loud voices, comes down the stairs. “What the hell?” I start with her, “Is he…?”
“Hold on a minute, she says softly, stopping me. “He knows how big a day it is tomorrow. Something else is going on.” She heads toward your room.
“Wait,” I say. “Let me.” I walk into your room and see your body under the covers, facing the wall, lights off, shades drawn. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound calm. “What’s really going on here? Why don’t you want to go?”
“ I TOLD YOU! I DON’T FEEL GOOD!” You pull the covers tighter. “LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Angry all over again, I yell back, “God DAMN it! Just get dressed and let’s go! You have to go anyway. Get out of bed NOW! Come ON!” I raise my arms in exasperation as I march out and down the hall again. Veronica just stares at me as I stomp by. She turns quietly and disappears into your room.
I feel angry, embarrassed and confused. I throw my clothes into my day bag like they were trash. I can’t BELIEVE this. Not now, not TODAY. I shake my head. Tomorrow is forecasted to be big, and could make the difference in how we do for the season. It’s too late to get anyone else, and I need the help!
I hear voices coming out into the hall. I step into the doorway to see you, tears running down your cheeks standing in front of your mother. She says gently, “Go on. Tell him. It’s ok.”
“Dad,” you say, with a look that goes right to my core, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do it.” You stop for a breath and look down. “I just can’t stand all the killing.”
…and I am no longer in the hallway with you. I am on the back deck of the first boat I fished on, the North Sea. Fishing my first season as a crew, no longer a 45-year-old-man with two children, but 27 years old and as green as can be, I am watching hundreds of salmon come over the stern, and I am stunned at all the death. Some of the fish come aboard already dead; most of them will die soon; some struggle, some accept it, some are puzzled. Some actually look like they know what’s happening and are resigned to their fate. If fish are like people, I think, then it’s in this: they die in as many ways as we. But the part that’s hardest to accept is that I am partly responsible for their deaths. Confronted with this terrible sense of guilt and shame, for a long moment I come closer to quitting fishing forever on this day than on any other for the next twenty years.
How could I not hear you?
My anger and frustration melt like ice in the sun. “I understand.” I say softly, because suddenly I do. “I understand completely.” We hug and talk. I tell you of that day, and how I had a hard time with the killing too. I explain the nature of it, how I came to understand I was harvesting a source of healthy food just as the fish were at the end of their lives anyway. You listen. We arrive at a compromise.
“Will you help with boat work when we get back to the dock then?”
You nod and look very serious. “Yes. I ‘d like that.”
“It’s a deal. See you tomorrow, then.”
I lean over and give you a hug goodnight. Standing at the foot of your bed, arms folded in front of her, your mother looks at us and smiles.
“Tomorrow’s the first big day,” I remark as we head out to the net rack. “We have to get this gear on today and go for groceries. I’d like to head out tonight.”
Your face falls, but I haven’t noticed.
“I’m not feeling so good,” you answer, and I see your scowl. I’m in my skipper mentality, what your mother calls my “jerk mode,” so I’m quick to assume the worst: I think you just don’t want to work. After all, I think, you’re 13, and though you like making money, you’d rather play video games than help out. It’s just my first wrong assumption of the day.
By the time I chew on that for a while, I’m pissed at you. We work with the gear in silence. I stew over what to do. I need the help, but I don’t need the distraction of a reluctant attitude. You committed to working for me for the season, and I want to teach you to live up to your commitments. Isn’t that what being a Dad is all about?
I’m even more pissed, and we haven’t spoken a word. You go through the motions, but the tension between us is thick. We’ll argue this out later, after the nets are on the boat. We drive to the cannery in a thick cloud of dust and silence.
Home, hours later, after dinner, I’m starting to pack up. “Got your gear together?” I ask, knowing you haven’t.
“I don’t feel good,” you answer from your bed. “My stomach hurts and I’ve got a headache.”
“Look,” I say, walking into your room, “I need your help tomorrow. I’m sorry you feel bad, but you promised me you’d come, and you need to get going. Take some Tylenol. You can sleep on the boat. We have to get out of the river before the tide is too low.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Dad!” Your voice rises as you start getting upset. “Can’t you just go without me?”
“No!” I answer, my voice getting louder, too. “I NEED you out there! I’m counting on you.” I walk out of your room and down the hall toward mine. “It’s gonna be a big day, and we really need the third hand to pitch the fish! Let’s go! We don’t have time to argue!”
“No, Dad!” you yell back at me, coming out into the hall. “I can’t go! I don’t feel good!” You run back into your room and slam the door.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I mutter under my breath. “I don’t have time for this!” Your Mom, hearing the loud voices, comes down the stairs. “What the hell?” I start with her, “Is he…?”
“Hold on a minute, she says softly, stopping me. “He knows how big a day it is tomorrow. Something else is going on.” She heads toward your room.
“Wait,” I say. “Let me.” I walk into your room and see your body under the covers, facing the wall, lights off, shades drawn. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound calm. “What’s really going on here? Why don’t you want to go?”
“ I TOLD YOU! I DON’T FEEL GOOD!” You pull the covers tighter. “LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Angry all over again, I yell back, “God DAMN it! Just get dressed and let’s go! You have to go anyway. Get out of bed NOW! Come ON!” I raise my arms in exasperation as I march out and down the hall again. Veronica just stares at me as I stomp by. She turns quietly and disappears into your room.
I feel angry, embarrassed and confused. I throw my clothes into my day bag like they were trash. I can’t BELIEVE this. Not now, not TODAY. I shake my head. Tomorrow is forecasted to be big, and could make the difference in how we do for the season. It’s too late to get anyone else, and I need the help!
I hear voices coming out into the hall. I step into the doorway to see you, tears running down your cheeks standing in front of your mother. She says gently, “Go on. Tell him. It’s ok.”
“Dad,” you say, with a look that goes right to my core, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do it.” You stop for a breath and look down. “I just can’t stand all the killing.”
…and I am no longer in the hallway with you. I am on the back deck of the first boat I fished on, the North Sea. Fishing my first season as a crew, no longer a 45-year-old-man with two children, but 27 years old and as green as can be, I am watching hundreds of salmon come over the stern, and I am stunned at all the death. Some of the fish come aboard already dead; most of them will die soon; some struggle, some accept it, some are puzzled. Some actually look like they know what’s happening and are resigned to their fate. If fish are like people, I think, then it’s in this: they die in as many ways as we. But the part that’s hardest to accept is that I am partly responsible for their deaths. Confronted with this terrible sense of guilt and shame, for a long moment I come closer to quitting fishing forever on this day than on any other for the next twenty years.
How could I not hear you?
My anger and frustration melt like ice in the sun. “I understand.” I say softly, because suddenly I do. “I understand completely.” We hug and talk. I tell you of that day, and how I had a hard time with the killing too. I explain the nature of it, how I came to understand I was harvesting a source of healthy food just as the fish were at the end of their lives anyway. You listen. We arrive at a compromise.
“Will you help with boat work when we get back to the dock then?”
You nod and look very serious. “Yes. I ‘d like that.”
“It’s a deal. See you tomorrow, then.”
I lean over and give you a hug goodnight. Standing at the foot of your bed, arms folded in front of her, your mother looks at us and smiles.
The first year I fished as my own skipper was 1979, after two years of crewing for an experienced Norwegian who had been at it since the mid-fifties. My wife, Veronica, and I had partnered up with two totally inexperienced but enthusiastic friends to buy the permit and boat during the winter, and the purchase took some creative financial scrambling. We swung the deal, though, and then the work started. The boat we arranged to buy from the cannery was an old beater of a wooden hull with a 3160 CAT engine that had been pulled for a rebuild. Chris and I spent every available minute of time crawling around the boat as the engineers re-installed that engine, asking questions about the fuel system and how it worked, the electrical system and how it worked, the exhaust, the cooling system, the hydraulics, the water tanks the fuel tanks, the reel, the electronics, and on and on. It was a crash course in boat operations, and we drank it all in until we had just enough knowledge to be dangerous rather than effective when we broke down. But that’s another story.
We were excited to get to the fishing. When the boat was actually in the water after months of preparation and work, when the engine finally started, after all the web had been mended by Veronica’s and Gigi’s inexperienced hands, after all the groceries and gear had been bought (but not paid for) and stowed aboard, we went to the cannery expecting to leave the river with the fleet only to find out from a gathering of fishermen at mug-up that we were on strike.
We were stunned. What does this mean? We asked. Who is on strike? Everyone? We found it hard to believe that every boat in the Inlet, over 700 of them, were all in agreement to do this. None of us had ever experienced a strike before. WHY were we striking? For a better price? Why? What was wrong with the price we had? We had no knowledge of markets, of expenses vs earnings, of price-fixing or what was fair or not. All we had experienced since the decision to get involved in fishing was the hard work. Now we had to deal with politics??? “Bullshit. Let’s just go fishing,” we argued to ourselves, “Let these guys work out this crap. We need to figure out how to catch fish.” Plus, we reasoned, we’ve got a ton of money to recover. Our expenses were overwhelming. We can’t afford to sit at the dock and wait for the processors to come to us. We need to start making money NOW!
I was a teacher before I fished. I knew intellectually that breaking a strike was the wrong thing to do. It had always been clear to me that if a teacher strike were voted, to be an effective tool everyone needed to participate. My confusion in the matter wasn’t about my belief in supporting a strike. The problem was that I didn’t see myself as a fisherman. I bought a permit and a boat; I worked as hard as anyone I saw to get ready for the season; but I still hadn’t fished a day in my life other than as a deckhand; I hadn’t yet earned the right to be called a fisherman. No one had yet shown me the secret handshake. I supposed I’d merit it eventually, but until then, I was just a teacher who fished. The concerns of the fishermen weren’t mine. How could my small effort create a problem for all these other professionals?
Fishermen around the cannery who saw us as green and dumb talked about strikebreakers. They mentioned guys who had gone fishing during the last strike, and though the stories weren’t clear or complete, we started listening more attentively. They were speaking about us, to us, without ever actually mentioning our names.
After standing frustrated on the dock all that first day, we met at Chris’s house to hash things out. We decided that as much as wanted to fish, we wouldn’t go until we got a straight answer from someone who knew what that would mean. We agreed my first skipper, Jim, would be the person to ask. He had experience and perspective, and he would be honest with me. I’d ask him the next day if it looked like the strike would continue.
I found Jim at mug-up the next morning. The canneries hadn’t budged on the price, and there was a growing tension and an angry tone to the fishermen’s talk around us as I asked him if we could have a private conversation on his boat, the North Sea, after coffee. He agreed, tight-lipped with a short nod of his head. I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking naive, perhaps sensitive questions of him in public, so I left him in the mug-up room with the old-timers, and walked out to the boardwalk and listened to the fishermen complain: “Fuckin’ canneries. They can settle this in a heartbeat if they wanted to.” “No use fer us to sit on the beach, goddamit.” This is a waste of time. I swear I’m leavin’. I’m sellin’ downriver if this doesn’t end soon. We’re always getting’ the lowest fuckin’ price. Fuck these guys.” It was the beginnings of a long education.
I joined Jim half-an-hour later in the cabin of the North Sea. I sat in the doorway as he worked on a windshield-wiper motor. His actions were slow and deliberate. So was his speech. “You don’t want to go fishing, Pat. Not during a strike. I know how bad you want to go, but you risk losing a lot more than a few dollars if you do.” He told me a story of a guy who had done just that, years ago. He fished while everyone else was on the beach striking, and for that he was ostracized by his friends and competitors alike. Other fishermen quit talking to him, even the cannery workers lost respect for him, and as a result he always had trouble getting the services he needed, couldn’t count on help if he got in trouble, and lost the friendships and support he had taken for granted when he decided to make money at the expense of someone else. It lasted years, and he eventually sold out. His reputation followed him, though, when he moved to the Bay, Jim had heard, and he eventually got out of fishing altogether, he thought. “You don’t want that,” he advised with a shake of his head as he tightened a screw on the wiper motor and looked over his glasses at me. “That’s not the way to start your fishing career.”
I thanked him for his advice, and climbed up the ladder to meet Chris, Gigi and Veronica. “What’d he say?” they asked. I told them what he had said, and though we didn’t like it, it was convincing enough to keep us off the grounds until the canneries upped their price enough a week later. Encased in that decision was my first realization that I was a fisherman, not an outsider looking in. In the meantime, we couldn’t stand it. We loaded our sport rods and reels onto our commercial fishing boat and went trolling for salmon in the river mouth. But that’s another story.
We were excited to get to the fishing. When the boat was actually in the water after months of preparation and work, when the engine finally started, after all the web had been mended by Veronica’s and Gigi’s inexperienced hands, after all the groceries and gear had been bought (but not paid for) and stowed aboard, we went to the cannery expecting to leave the river with the fleet only to find out from a gathering of fishermen at mug-up that we were on strike.
We were stunned. What does this mean? We asked. Who is on strike? Everyone? We found it hard to believe that every boat in the Inlet, over 700 of them, were all in agreement to do this. None of us had ever experienced a strike before. WHY were we striking? For a better price? Why? What was wrong with the price we had? We had no knowledge of markets, of expenses vs earnings, of price-fixing or what was fair or not. All we had experienced since the decision to get involved in fishing was the hard work. Now we had to deal with politics??? “Bullshit. Let’s just go fishing,” we argued to ourselves, “Let these guys work out this crap. We need to figure out how to catch fish.” Plus, we reasoned, we’ve got a ton of money to recover. Our expenses were overwhelming. We can’t afford to sit at the dock and wait for the processors to come to us. We need to start making money NOW!
I was a teacher before I fished. I knew intellectually that breaking a strike was the wrong thing to do. It had always been clear to me that if a teacher strike were voted, to be an effective tool everyone needed to participate. My confusion in the matter wasn’t about my belief in supporting a strike. The problem was that I didn’t see myself as a fisherman. I bought a permit and a boat; I worked as hard as anyone I saw to get ready for the season; but I still hadn’t fished a day in my life other than as a deckhand; I hadn’t yet earned the right to be called a fisherman. No one had yet shown me the secret handshake. I supposed I’d merit it eventually, but until then, I was just a teacher who fished. The concerns of the fishermen weren’t mine. How could my small effort create a problem for all these other professionals?
Fishermen around the cannery who saw us as green and dumb talked about strikebreakers. They mentioned guys who had gone fishing during the last strike, and though the stories weren’t clear or complete, we started listening more attentively. They were speaking about us, to us, without ever actually mentioning our names.
After standing frustrated on the dock all that first day, we met at Chris’s house to hash things out. We decided that as much as wanted to fish, we wouldn’t go until we got a straight answer from someone who knew what that would mean. We agreed my first skipper, Jim, would be the person to ask. He had experience and perspective, and he would be honest with me. I’d ask him the next day if it looked like the strike would continue.
I found Jim at mug-up the next morning. The canneries hadn’t budged on the price, and there was a growing tension and an angry tone to the fishermen’s talk around us as I asked him if we could have a private conversation on his boat, the North Sea, after coffee. He agreed, tight-lipped with a short nod of his head. I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking naive, perhaps sensitive questions of him in public, so I left him in the mug-up room with the old-timers, and walked out to the boardwalk and listened to the fishermen complain: “Fuckin’ canneries. They can settle this in a heartbeat if they wanted to.” “No use fer us to sit on the beach, goddamit.” This is a waste of time. I swear I’m leavin’. I’m sellin’ downriver if this doesn’t end soon. We’re always getting’ the lowest fuckin’ price. Fuck these guys.” It was the beginnings of a long education.
I joined Jim half-an-hour later in the cabin of the North Sea. I sat in the doorway as he worked on a windshield-wiper motor. His actions were slow and deliberate. So was his speech. “You don’t want to go fishing, Pat. Not during a strike. I know how bad you want to go, but you risk losing a lot more than a few dollars if you do.” He told me a story of a guy who had done just that, years ago. He fished while everyone else was on the beach striking, and for that he was ostracized by his friends and competitors alike. Other fishermen quit talking to him, even the cannery workers lost respect for him, and as a result he always had trouble getting the services he needed, couldn’t count on help if he got in trouble, and lost the friendships and support he had taken for granted when he decided to make money at the expense of someone else. It lasted years, and he eventually sold out. His reputation followed him, though, when he moved to the Bay, Jim had heard, and he eventually got out of fishing altogether, he thought. “You don’t want that,” he advised with a shake of his head as he tightened a screw on the wiper motor and looked over his glasses at me. “That’s not the way to start your fishing career.”
I thanked him for his advice, and climbed up the ladder to meet Chris, Gigi and Veronica. “What’d he say?” they asked. I told them what he had said, and though we didn’t like it, it was convincing enough to keep us off the grounds until the canneries upped their price enough a week later. Encased in that decision was my first realization that I was a fisherman, not an outsider looking in. In the meantime, we couldn’t stand it. We loaded our sport rods and reels onto our commercial fishing boat and went trolling for salmon in the river mouth. But that’s another story.